Dubia Colors

[JeffreH]

I think the key phrase in Kyle's email was the "per say" in paranthesis. He makes a strong argument when he claims that dubia are raised for maximal production, and not necessarily "ideal." I'll elaborate:

Most serious roach enthusiasts create somewhat naturalistic caging for their inverts; this inlcudes a substrate, often dry hardwood/oak leaves, and decaying wood to munch on. Furthermore, this allow the ambient humidity to remain more constant and creates a number of constant food and moisture sources. The ideal B. dubia environment in all honestly is probably an enclosure with a coir based substrate, littered with oak leaves, and having lots of dead wood available for hiding and munching on. Also - the temperatures we keep them at for production are not their ideal. We actually kind of force them to grow at an extremely rapid rate for our production goals. Higher temperatures force them to dehydrate faster than they can absorb water for metabolic purposes (thats why roaches kept warmer seem to consume absolutely massive quanitity of moisture product).

Believe it or not, temperatures where B. dubia come from very seldom exceed ~86 degrees F. Can they handle 100? you bet, and you force their metabolism to go crazy which leads to roaches attaining adult size rapidly and therefore reproducing at a more rapid rate. B. dubia's optimal environment is honestly temperatures between 75-90 degrees MAX... probably a thermogradiant that allows for a high 70's cool end and an 88 degree hot spot. They may grow a little slower and breed a little slower, but thats the kind of environment they naturally live in. Also, overcrowding... while I agree they do breed better in crowded conditions (along with a number of other species, such as some in the Blaberus genus) that doesn't necessarily mean its optimal for their development. Pheromone production begins to dictate breeding as priority over doing other daily roachies activites, it becomes more of a massive orgy rather than living in boring normal roach land.

If they have a constant supply of food and a constant supply of moisture, they will do their best to reproduce at the maximal rate they can. Temperatures are proportional to growth in insects (to a certain point) because metabolism increases with temps. But that doesn't mean staying at a constant ultimate metabolism is good, and that may be representative in their pigmentation. Not saying that keeping them the way we do is "bad" because we are attaining our goal of producing as many nymphs as possible for our herps - but many of us rearing feeding insects would get back-handed by a die-hard roach enthusiast for keeping them the way we do LOL!

Edit: When I say "you" I'm not referring to anyone, should really read "we" because I keep my feeders on the hotter side, etc as well. I practically neglect half of my feeder colonies and baby the heck out of my collector species = )